Sunday 1 November 2009 19.10 EST
First published on Sunday 1 November 2009 19.10 EST

A little while ago I received an email from a well-known female television presenter implying sexism on my part, following a semi-humorous piece I had written about her new hairstyle. She complained that every time I wrote about a programme she was hosting, I ignored the content and wrote about her appearance. I wrote back rebutting the charge of sexism, pointing out that some of my best friends are chicks, and so is the wife. I suggested that maybe she had got a little overwrought because it was the time of the month, or Thorntons had run out of continental assortment or something, which I thought might have cleared the matter up.

But blow me if she does not go on to that damned efficient Guardian website and find at least a dozen pieces in my archive supporting her argument, at which point there was nothing for it but to hold up my hands, say, "You got me bang to rights, guv, but society's to blame", and resolve to be a nicer columnist in future. If this were North Korea or Sheffield, I should probably have been sent to a camp for re-education, but I have examined my own attitudes and prejudices, in which spirit, this week I give you: Jeff Stelling's hair.

It is not easy to keep up with Jeff. He will not remember, but I met him 20-odd years ago on the TV-am sofa, when he was a Partridgesque figure with a dodgy tan and a dodgier sweater, reporting on horse racing, as I recall. Who could have guessed back then that he would become one of our leading sports broadcasters, and cross over successfully into the mainstream as host of Countdown?

As well as the Channel 4 quiz, Jeff currently presents live football on Sky, the celebrated results and banter show Gillette Soccer Saturday, and Time Of Our Lives, also on Sky, a round-table chat featuring a different club each week, in which three former players relive the glory, glory days.

It is an impressive portfolio, making you wonder if Jeff strays far from a television studio these days, and recalling a crack of Rip Torn's producer character to talk show host Larry Sanders, "You're like some creature from goddam Greek mythology", he said, "Half man, half desk."

Anyway, in keeping with his TV star status, Jeff has got himself a fabulous new haircut. I am not a hairdresser, never having been that interested in where people are going on holiday, but it looks a pretty expensive cut to me. Feathered, I believe, is the technical term for the way the back and sides have been styled, while in the middle it is in carefully arranged disarray, if that makes sense, sticking up in parts in a mildly punky way.

There will be those among you, I know, who will be asking what relevance Jeff Stelling's hair has to anything – I am always disappointed if there is not at least one comment on the Guardian blog reading, "I can't believe he gets paid for this" – but I believe the new hair-do raises an interesting point. Could it not ever so subtly change the dynamic of the relationship between Jeff and the ex-pros with whom he joshes on a Saturday afternoon?

When he was merely an anorak with an unnatural interest in Brighton & Hove Albion's recent results sequence and the name of Kilmarnock's second-choice goalkeeper, the football folk had the upper hand, and Jeff tended to be on the receiving end of much good-natured banter; but now he is the elegantly coiffed monarch of all he surveys, might that not change?

Well, lo and behold, when I tuned in on Saturday, Jeff had swept it all back in the style of Dennis Compton in the Brylcreem ads (one for the teenagers, there), and the locker-room badinage was unaffected. Good move, Jeff.

Coincidentally, Stelling's other Sky show, the hugely enjoyable Time Of Our Lives, last week featured Coventry City's 1987 FA Cup winning side, and one of the guests, team captain Brian Kilcline, was a vivid illustration of what can happen to hair in incipient middle age, without the kind of savvy stylist who has been looking after Jeff.

Kilcline, always something of a blond bombshell, has gone for the full Roy Wood, long flowing shoulder length hair and a generous goatee. He looked like an ageing roadie who had mislaid his band, reminding me of another Coogan character, the underrated Tommy Saxondale.

Kilcline had some great yarns about the Cup run, though, not least the story of how he sat out extra-time injured on the bench and had to watch the action through a fug because the club doctor on one side of him and the assistant doctor on the other were both chain-smoking.

This show, of course, may have been recorded some time ago, and Jeff's hairstyle may simply have grown out before Soccer Saturday. In which case, please disregard the above.